Founder and CEO, CHIPPEWA PARTNERS, Native American Advisors, Inc. Member, White Earth Chippewa Reservation helping Natives for four decades. Raised conservative in the color of friend and Crow Chief, Robert Yellow Tail. Trained on Wall Street in 1982/83. In a world on a total dopamine, hypomanic binge, this is his take on financial chicanery, political crime, Native issues and life well lived. Written from the trading desk at the Ghost Ranch in MT or Pamelot, his TN farm with no apologies.

Monday, February 08, 2016

From my desk, 2.8.2016

You don't need analysts in a bull market and you don't want them in a bear market. It is time to revisit some common sense for all of you in the fly-over states who will have brokers calling with the sell-this, buy-that meme as their commission runs dry up in this bear market.

Having been through a fair amount of volatility in my trading career I can only say for certain there is some massive spikes of volatility ahead. I started in this business on April 1, 1982, what a joke eh?

There is going to be alot of pain with your money. It is coming just as sure as the lies and bullshit campaign promises of Republicans and Democrats.

Let me share some advice in a speech that I gave long ago and not too long ago. It never seems to go out of style.

I was born in 1953. That year the price of a 1st class
postage stamp was 3 cents. Maybe I am
old-fashioned, maybe I have been around too long, maybe I‘ve made too much
money sitting in stocks over many years.
You see, I’m one of those guys what believes stocks solve long-term
problems. You should too. If you are like many investors maybe you
turned off TV and stopped watching financial news as the market corrected back in 2000, 2001 and 2002 from the excesses
of the 1990’s. I know the drivel on CNBC
from the buy-this, sell-that crowd drowns out basic, common sense. To me, and probably to you, the hallmarks of
a successful retirement are dignity and independence, the ability to go hunting
where and when you want and the ability to meet the basic needs of life that
continue to only go one way in price. Up.

Today, the average American male lives to be
77, the average female lives to 81. I
know the key to financial independence, perhaps over decades of retirement is
an income you can’t outlive, an income that is rising even as your cost of
living continues to go up.

Personally, I think the biggest financial
risk to all of us besides losing one’s money, is outliving it, which means
owning the stock market is more critical today than ever before. Remember the cost of living has tripled over
the last 30 years, yet few triple their income in retirement? Risk is the extinction of purchasing power.
Safety is increasing your purchasing power.
Last week I paid 49 cents for a postage stamp. I will bet my Lowa boots the price of stamps
is only going one way. Care to guess
which way the price of stamps will go?

The stock market is simply a facility for the
exchange of shares. Just like the
markets for fur, guns, traps or fish it is driven by supply and demand. My friends on the NYSE floor understand fear
and greed better than most but they can’t tell the difference between preferred
stock and livestock, they only care about payouts on commissions generated with
your money, not theirs. When I last
checked fear and greed hadn’t changed for around 10,000 years. Today, capitalism is the organizing principle
for most of the human activity on the globe, for no one can stop
capitalism. Here are 10 reasons why the United States stock market is going to continue
up much like it has during your entire lifetime, (1) the U.S. has the greatest number of
entrepreneurial managed companies in the world, bar none. (2) we have the
leading military in the world (3) we have the leading high technology in the
world in both hardware and software (4) we have the leading medical technology
in the world (5)we have the leading political system in the world (6) we have
25 times more Nobel prize winners that any other country in the world (7) we
create more jobs than Japan and Europe combined (8) we have 11,000 companies
that trade publicly under some of the better accounting rules anywhere (9) you
as an American have the freedom to accumulate wealth and extract out of life
what it is you want and (10) the stock market doesn’t care who you are, what
color you are, where you went to school, and, (because I grew up in the poorest
county in America on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation), it doesn’t care where
you came from.

Things are great and they are going to get
better. I feel the 21st
Century started in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down. Change is certain. I am one of those guys that believe you set
your goals in life ahead of time. Mine
includes being a free person; freedom is what this country is all about. The opportunities for success are greater now
than ever before. For the first time in
the history of the world all the people who are poor know they are poor. Success has nothing to do with money and
everything to do with how you feel about yourself. Your net worth is your ability to
function. When I was a cadet at the United StatesMilitaryAcademy at West
Point postage stamps cost 8 cents and the Dow crossed 1,000 for
the first time. That same year the
microprocessor was invented. Today, 85%
of the scientists who have ever lived are still working! When I took my degree in Economics the price
of a stamp was 13 cents. Still think you
don’t need exposure to the stock market?

The market is a funny place. It is the only business in the world when
things are on sale, people don’t want to buy.
The greatest enemy of long term investment success is not ignorance, it
is fear. You see, fear leads to panic
and panic breeds the inability to distinguish between temporary declines and
permanent losses. When people panic they
don’t discriminate. Since all market
declines have been temporary and all advances permanent, we know the key to
investment success is not found in intellectual babble like beta’s, standard
deviations or chaos theory. It’s time in
the market. Put time on your side. The single greatest thing you have going for
you is time because no one can successfully forecast interest rates over the
long term and no one can forecast short to intermediate term stock market
moves. Long term the market always goes
up, that is inevitable. But, why do
investors lose in the market and why has the average mutual fund investor only
averaged a small return in his mutual fund holdings?

I don’t mean to be critical, but most people
invest through the rear-view mirror.
They buy mutual funds after they have gone up substantially. They have bought into what I call the SesameStreetSchool of investing. They buy into the hottest fund, in the
hottest sector, in the hottest country, from the hottest brokerage firm and the
one that has the most “stars” next to it in Money magazine. Then what happens? You know the drill. They turn cold. In fairly short order, a perfectly normal
market correction comes along. The cycle
comes to an end. Investing like that is
like enlisting in the Taliban on September 12th,
2001. Yes, you are
joining the proudest fighting force in the world that day. Yes, your outfit just pulled off one of the
greatest disasters of all time. But you
know what? You are toast. Your obituary is written. It is all downhill. I have no wish to drive
this message into the ground like a ICBM but I want to make one point very
clear. Pay attention. At the end of an investor’s life, less than
5% of his total lifetime return will from what his investments did versus other
investments. The other 95% will come
from how the investor behaved.

You see, I have a firm belief that there is
absolutely no relationship between investment performance and investor
performance. Stock market success is a
function of two things. One, recognition
that the markets will go down and sometimes go down a lot, and two, prepare to
regard those declines as either non-events or buying opportunities and never as
an occasion to sell. With all certainty,
I know that the most boring and mediocre stock fund in your portfolio, the one
you hold onto during a vicious bear market is infinitely better than the
world-class stock fund that you sell out of at the bottom of a temporary
decline. The secret to making big money
in stocks is to not get scared out of them.
Americans, God bless them, are totally unable to distinguish between
fluctuation and loss. The bottom line is this, and if you don’t believe me you
have the right to be wrong, but don’t forget it, the higher your exposure to
stocks as a percentage of your assets the better your overall return, over the
long term. In the long run, no one
controls our investment fate. We control
it. Bailing out of markets is like
quitting a marathon because you get tired.

Native American Advisors CHIPPEWA PARTNERS

DEAN T. PARISIAN

CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER

GO IN LIGHT......

COME OUT HEAVY.....

REGISTERED INVESTMENT ADVISOR

At Chippewa Partners our investment strategies are designed for serious money. As a fiduciary firm, we champion the cause of the client. Our commitment in providing unbiased investment advice is paramount and like you, our plans, hopes and dreams inspire us every day.

We are grateful for the privilege to serve.

Our founder, Dean Parisian, has traded in the markets for over 35 years but hasn't forgotten his roots growing up on reservations across remote parts of America.

As a fiercely independent firm we do our homework every day for private clients across North America. We are in the game and in the game to win. We are about doing the right things, the right way, for the right reasons for clients who don't have the time, talent or training to manage their retirement assets.

Nothing contained within this web site should be interpreted as a recommendation to purchase, sell or hold any security at any time. Do not buy or sell securities discussed by Dean Parisian. Do nothing. Making investment decisions based on information published on this blog, or any internet site, is more than unwise, it is folly. Always consult an investment advisor, preferably a fiduciary and not a broker with a commission-based agenda, who is familiar with your situation before making investment transactions.

Comments from the bleachers should be directed to Dean Parisian at his email account: chippewapartners (at) gmail dot com. Please use the comments feature to demonstrate your ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, you are welcome to kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

Growing up on a horse in the West, keep in mind this isn't my first rodeo. I have thick skin and know how to cowboy up. I don't have a need to value myself by what others have said about me. Never forget, truth is like poetry and most people hate poetry. My natural state is of an outsider and am good at sizing up Wall Street types, corporate brown-nosers, political hacks and bullshitters who permeate our rigged financial system.

Chippewa Partners is a Registered Investment Adviser that provides investment management services to a select group of clients. Chippewa Partners has a fiduciary obligation to its clients; not to the readers of this blog.

We do not provide investing advice on this site.

Chippewa Partners, Native American Advisors, Inc. and its principals, employees and affiliates, may hold positions in securities discussed herein and may trade them differently and contrary to the information and discussion provided on this web site. We buy or sell securities at any time and for any reason.

The accuracy, completeness or timeliness of information posted on this blog is not guaranteed. There are no guarantees in life besides government infringement, taxation, EBITDA lies and society's total abdication of personal responsibility. There may be delays, omissions, or inaccuracies in this blog. Do not rely on statements from this site. As well, do not believe that stock exchanges in the United States are fair markets. They are rigged by quote stuffing, flash trading, packet churning, layering, sub-pennying, dark pool arbitrage and NBBO and Reg NMS exemptions. High frequency trading helps the markets like a mugger helps carry your wallet. Perhaps if America weren't so low in terms of education compared to the rest of the world and if United States citizens weren't involved with social media and reality shows they might give a rats ass about the greatest bank robbery in the history of the world; of how the US Federal Reserve bank allows a cheesy unsustainable shell game, managed by Harvard-educated bureaucratic bullshit artists and backed with taxpayer guarantees.

The information presented on this site is general information and should not be considered investment advice. In addition, the advice provided to clients of Chippewa Partners has been and could be materially different from the information discussed on this site.

The farce of "full disclosure" is totally unnecessary. Substituting appearances for skepticism only makes sense if you concede the argument that opinion ought to be actionable and that appearances color facts. That is, that Dean Parisian telling you crude oil is cheap and going long or short seems to make sense, somehow makes him responsible, if you without taking the time to avail yourself of any other data, lose your ass on crude. It is that kind of thinking that makes people sue because, though they spent less time on their investments than planning a vacation or buying a wide screen TV, they didn't get the historical 10% market return on their portfolio.

Chippewa Partners has been around a long time and gears to educate the connection between skepticism and personal responsibility in matters financial. We have no intention of enabling the sort of thinking that facilitates the widespread fleecing of the country by ratings agencies, HFT, the Fed or lying CEO's. In other words, we have no intention of treating you like "dumb money". Skeptical market participants have no need of "full disclosure" disclosures that purport to purge an investment manager of some sort of original sin. In the first place, no disclosure is ever "full". Secondly, one does not suddenly acquire the literary prowess of Hemingway or the logical mastery of Aristotle simply by revealing that some time in the last decade some employee may have bedded an underling of the CEO of the ABC Corporation or the administrative assistant at the XYZ Corporation.

We think talking about investing and investments is, in every case, a good thing and should be encouraged at every turn. Even idiots should talk about investments. It makes it much easier to identify and deal with them. I often have compared successful trading to getting pregnant. Everyone congratulates you on being pregnant and being successful and making money in the stock market. They never want to understand how long it took, methodology, position-sizing, handling losses and more importantly, how many times one got screwed first. There are a million ways to lose money in the market and I've experienced nearly every way. It's the best way to learn, but expensive training. Regulators aren't out to protect investors and algo's and bots will never hear you whine.

At Chippewa Partners you should always assume that at all times we are talking our book and that you should be in shock and awe of our positions, something akin to the unexpected, early-morning arrival of a cluster of BGM-109C Tomahawk missiles. If we happen to make an off-hand remark about New Zealand sheep herders it is because we are long New Zealand South Island Wool futures and Kiwi Brand condoms. If Dean Parisian mentions Joe Sixpack it is because he is trying to hype our American beer holdings so we can exit quickly. Basically, we are telling you about a position we believe in strongly enough to invest in with our own money. Real money, not option grants that cost CEO's zero dollars.

Critical readers of this blog should read posts with the blanket assumption that Dean Parisian is totally "conflicted". Phrased more logically, that Dean Parisian stands to benefit financially from being right! This turns the conversation to the content and away from Dean Parisian, his biography and the content of his portfolio holdings. The content is of course where the focus should be.

Readers should remember this analogy and keep in mind that you don't test the safety of a safe under ideal conditions and call it good. You test it with all the advantages to the burglar. And then you let the burglar cheat. If it remains closed, then and only then is it secure.